This essay is as relevant today as it was relevant at the
end of 2001:

Terrorism and war have something in common. They both
involve the killing of innocent people to achieve what the
killers believe is a good end. I can see an immediate
objection to this equation: They (the terrorists) deliberately
kill innocent people; we (the war makers) aim at "military
targets," and civilians are killed by accident, as "collateral
damage."

Is it really an accident when civilians die under our
bombs? Even if you grant that the intention is not to kill
civilians, if they nevertheless become victims, again and
again and again, can that be called an accident? If the deaths
of civilians are inevitable in bombing, it may not be
deliberate, but it is not an accident, and the bombers cannot
be considered innocent. They are committing murder as surely
as are the terrorists.

The absurdity of claiming innocence in such cases becomes
apparent when the death tolls from "collateral damage" reach
figures far greater than the lists of the dead from even the
most awful act of terrorism. Thus, the "collateral damage" in
the Gulf War caused more people to die--hundreds of thousands,
if you include the victims of our sanctions policy--than the
very deliberate terrorist attack of September 11. The total of
those who have died in Israel from Palestinian terrorist bombs
is somewhere under 1,000. The number of dead from "collateral
damage" in the bombing of Beirut during Israel's invasion of
Lebanon in 1982 was roughly 6,000.

We must not match the death lists--it is an ugly
exercise--as if one atrocity is worse than another. No killing
of innocents, whether deliberate or "accidental," can be
justified. My argument is that when children die at the hands
of terrorists, or--whether intended or not--as a result of
bombs dropped from airplanes, terrorism and war become equally
unpardonable.

Let's talk about "military targets." The phrase is so loose
that President Truman, after the nuclear bomb obliterated the
population of Hiroshima, could say: "The world will note that
the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military
base. That was because we wished in this first attack to
avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."

...

I suggest that the history of bombing--and no one has
bombed more than this nation--is a history of endless
atrocities, all calmly explained by deceptive and deadly
language like "accident," "military targets," and "collateral
damage."

Some people argue that the only viable option to
conflict resolution is the escalation to war:

To get at the roots of terrorism is complicated. Dropping
bombs is simple. It is an old response to what everyone
acknowledges is a very new situation. At the core of
unspeakable and unjustifiable acts of terrorism are justified
grievances felt by millions of people who would not themselves
engage in terrorism but from whose ranks terrorists spring.

Those grievances are of two kinds: the existence of
profound misery-- hunger, illness--in much of the world,
contrasted to the wealth and luxury of the West, especially
the United States; and the presence of American military power
everywhere in the world, propping up oppressive regimes and
repeatedly intervening with force to maintain U.S. hegemony.

This suggests actions that not only deal with the long-term
problem of terrorism but are in themselves just.

...

In short, let us pull back from being a military
superpower, and become a humanitarian superpower.